{"id":8488,"date":"2022-05-07T04:55:38","date_gmt":"2022-05-07T11:55:38","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/sports\/?p=50000003126"},"modified":"2022-05-07T04:59:55","modified_gmt":"2022-05-07T11:59:55","slug":"long-beach-state-mens-volleyball-goes-for-ncaa-title-tonight","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/sports\/long-beach-state-mens-volleyball-goes-for-ncaa-title-tonight","title":{"rendered":"Long Beach State men&#8217;s volleyball goes for NCAA title tonight"},"content":{"rendered":"<p dir=\"ltr\">The Long Beach State men\u2019s volleyball team has a shot to hang a banner tonight as they play for an NCAA championship against Big West Conference rivals Hawaii at UCLA\u2019s Pauley Pavilion at 5 p.m.<\/p>\n<p dir=\"ltr\">Tickets for the match can be purchased <a href=\"https:\/\/ucla.evenue.net\/cgi-bin\/ncommerce3\/SEGetEventList?groupCode=MVBNCAA&amp;linkID=ucla-multi&amp;shopperContext=&amp;caller=&amp;appCode=\">here<\/a>, and the match will also be televised live on ESPN 2.<\/p>\n<p dir=\"ltr\">The meeting of the Beach and the Rainbow Warriors is the latest installment of what\u2019s become an elite rivalry. The last time a team besides Long Beach or Hawaii won the NCAA men\u2019s volleyball title was 2017\u2014the Beach won in 2018 and 2019 (beating Hawaii in \u201819) and Hawaii won it last year.<\/p>\n<p dir=\"ltr\">\u201cThere are some rivalries that mean more than others for sure, and Long Beach has been a stiff opponent of ours for a long time,\u201d said Hawaii coach Charlie Wade.<\/p>\n<p dir=\"ltr\">\u201cWe\u2019ve played in very important matches for years and it always brings the best out of both teams,\u201d said Long Beach State coach Alan Knipe.<\/p>\n<p dir=\"ltr\">The Beach are seeking a third NCAA title in four years, an impressive feat for a program that had only won one in its history prior to 2018.<\/p>\n<p dir=\"ltr\">The Beach will rely heavily on outside hitter Alex Nikolov, recently named the National Player of the Year despite being a freshman. Nikolov <a href=\"https:\/\/www.the562.org\/2022\/05\/06\/ncaa-volleyball-long-beach-state-wins-five-set-thriller-with-ucla-will-play-for-title-saturday\/\">was key in Long Beach\u2019s crazy five-set win<\/a> over UCLA in the Final Four.<\/p>\n<p dir=\"ltr\">We\u2019ll have live updates of the match at <a href=\"http:\/\/the562.org\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\" data-saferedirecturl=\"https:\/\/www.google.com\/url?q=http:\/\/the562.org&amp;source=gmail&amp;ust=1651998300828000&amp;usg=AOvVaw0vKsS2pByC34jzBycfBWrj\">the562.org<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>https:\/\/lbpost.com\/sports\/long-beach-state-volleyball-ncaa-final-four-preview<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The meeting of the Beach and the Rainbow Warriors is the latest installment of what\u2019s become an elite rivalry.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":237,"featured_media":17249,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"newspack_sponsor_sponsorship_scope":"","newspack_sponsor_native_byline_display":"inherit","newspack_sponsor_native_category_display":"inherit","newspack_sponsor_underwriter_style":"inherit","newspack_sponsor_underwriter_placement":"inherit","inline_featured_image":false,"newspack_ads_suppress_ads":false,"newspack_popups_has_disabled_popups":"","_":"","_author_alias":"","cap-aim":"","cap-description":"","cap-display_name":"","cap-first_name":"","cap-jabber":"","cap-last_name":"","cap-linked_account":"","cap-newspack_employer":"","cap-newspack_job_title":"","cap-newspack_phone_number":"","cap-newspack_role":"","cap-user_email":"","cap-user_login":"","cap-website":"","cap-yahooim":"","newspack_article_summary":"","newspack_email_html":"","newspack_email_type":"","newspack_featured_image_position":"","newspack_hide_page_title":"","newspack_hide_updated_date":false,"newspack_post_subtitle":"","newspack_show_share_buttons":"","newspack_sponsor_byline_prefix":"","newspack_sponsor_disclaimer_override":"","newspack_sponsor_flag_override":"","newspack_sponsor_only_direct":"","newspack_sponsor_url":"","newspack_article_summary_title":"Overview:","newspack_show_updated_date":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[11],"newspack_spnsrs_tax":[],"coauthors":[2730],"class_list":["post-8488","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-sports","tag-ncaa-volleyball","entry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8488","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/237"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=8488"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8488\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/17249"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8488"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8488"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8488"},{"taxonomy":"newspack_spnsrs_tax","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/newspack_spnsrs_tax?post=8488"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/coauthors?post=8488"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}